The Department of Homeland Security has a new big idea for improving the cybersecurity of federal agencies and key private industries: big data.

A White House progress report released Feb. 5 detailing how the federal government is seizing big data opportunities said DHS is “working across government and the private sector to identify and leverage the opportunities big data analytics presents to strengthen cybersecurity.”

When queried by Nextgov, a DHS spokesman declined to provide details about the big data efforts outlined in the report.

But in a conference call with members of the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee that same day, White House and DHS officials provided glimpses into a number of ongoing initiatives that aim to fuse traditional cyber-defense methods with the real-time intelligence rendered by robust data analytics.

Conventional methods to detect and mitigate threats from drones are limited; radars either don’t detect drones or characterize them incorrectly (i.e. migratory birds). Additionally, if radar does detect the drone, it cannot mitigate the threat or identify the source. Clearly a comprehensive solution that finds and IDs the drone platform, mitigates the threat safely, and provides forensic evidence to government and law enforcement officials is necessary whether you’re protecting the Super Bowl, an airport, or a government facility.

As I mentioned last time, drones have onboard logic and communications channels, therefore the use of advanced cybersecurity platform protection techniques can be employed. Defense contractors and technology companies alike are developing cybersecurity solutions to address the aforementioned challenges. One approach that has been developed creates a “cyber fence” that employs the use of cyber defense techniques found on traditional IT networks, except it uses those techniques against platforms such as drones. This cyber fence can be integrated into other physical, electronic, and cyber defense mechanisms to offer full protection against this threat.

Utah state officials have seen what they describe as a sharp uptick in attempts to hack into state computers in the last two years, and they think it related to the NSA data center south of Salt Lake City.

The increase began in early 2013 as international attention focused on the NSA’s $1.7 billion warehouse to store massive amounts of information gathered secretly from phone calls and emails.

While most of the attempts are likely innocuous, cyber experts say it is possible low-level hackers, “hactivists” unhappy with the NSA’s tactics, and some foreign criminal groups might erroneously think the state systems are linked to the NSA.

The Office of Personnel Management is keeping a close eye on details emerging about a hack at the second biggest U.S. health insurer, Anthem Inc., which provides coverage to 1.3 million federal employees.

Anthem runs the Blue Cross-Blue Shield Service Benefit Plan, better known as the Federal Employee Program, or FEP, in many states, including Virginia, California and New York.

“OPM is closely monitoring the situation,” an agency spokesman told Nextgov. “Anthem informed OPM that it shut down the network in question and is working to ensure the security of its systems as it investigates the extent of the breach.”

When contacted by Nextgov on Thursday, Anthem officials were not ready to discuss the potential ramifications of the incident for current or former federal employee members.

In a statement, officials said intruders perpetrated “a very sophisticated attack” to break into Anthem’s systems, and the offenders “have obtained personal information relating to consumers and Anthem employees who are currently covered, or who have received coverage in the past.”

The affected database housed records on roughly 80 million customers and tens of millions of records were copied, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the incident.

Facing both shrinking research and development budgets and a need to adopt faster and more flexible ISR network technologies, such as software-defined networks (SDNs), the Army is now looking to its commercial partners for assistance in developing innovative solutions.

“We work closely with both internal — Army and [Department of Defense] — research facilities, as well as contractors from multiple fields supporting cyberspace,” said Lt. Col. Jackie Jones, a spokesman for the Advanced Concepts and Technology Directorate (ACTD) of Army Cyber Command in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Jones said the decision to work in closer collaboration with commercial partners is being made out of necessity. “While DoD research facilities may expand the number of technologies they develop and evaluate, they are not growing in capacity at the same rate as the civilian marketplace.”

Jones noted that by forming close ties with industry, academic and other external R&D organizations, the Army hopes to achieve and maintain a thorough understanding of all emerging ISR network technologies. “Currently, not all cyberspace capability requirements from commanders can be accomplished with existing technologies,” he said. “As operations being conducted in and through cyberspace become more integrated within military operations … research and development into new capabilities will be necessary for the Army to stay at the leading edge of technology with respect to our adversaries.”

The military services each want to bring on board an additional 20 to 60 computer security whizzes starting next fall to fill the ranks of a 6,000-person Cyber Command, according to President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2016 funding request.

Air Force Maj. Gen. James Martin earlier this week said that increases in the service’s operations and maintenance budget would create a total of 39 cyber teams. Those teams will include “200 military personnel in cyber operations and cyber warfare positions to counter growing worldwide cyber threats,” according to budget documents.

“We’re stopping the downsizing,” Martin told reporters on Tuesday, when the budget was released. “Support of this budget request is important, so that we can eliminate some stress on the force, that we can make sure we’re adding back money for the force structure that we have, as well as some billets that support and strengthen the nuclear enterprise, as well as new missions such as the cyber teams.”

Included in the president’s 2016 budget proposal are several initiatives to increase access to data and improve the government’s evidence-based decision making.

“The administration is committed to continuing cost-effective investment in federal statistical programs in order to build and support agencies’ capacity to incorporate evidence and evaluation analyses into budget, management and policy decisions,” the budget reads. “The 2016 budget includes a package of proposals that would make additional administrative data from federal agencies and programs legally and practically available for policy development, program evaluation, performance measurement and accountability and transparency efforts.”

Overall, the president’s budget offers a 2.5 percent increase for statistical programs, rising from $4.2 billion in 2015 to $5.2 billion under the 2016 proposal.

One of the largest data-producers in the federal government, the Census Bureau, would get an additional $10 million to continue building out its collection of datasets and the infrastructure that allows users to collate, analyze and share that data.